Over-current protection is an important safety feature in commercial electrical applications. In high-reliability applications (e.g., aerospace applications), fuses or mechanical circuit breakers are generally used for over-current fault isolation; however, both fuses and mechanical circuit breakers have respective shortcomings. For example, the nature of a fuse is such that fuses present a reliability risk during operation since they may be OFF at start-up and need to be replaced after the fuse is blown. Similarly, the nature of mechanical circuit breakers makes mechanical circuit breakers subject to vibration, and must be physically reset when tripped.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide electronic circuit breaker apparatus and systems that are powered ON at start-up and can be electrically reset when tripped. It is further desirable to provide electronic circuit breaker apparatus and systems for use in high voltage and/or high-current applications. In addition, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.